FAILURE AND SELF-AWARENESS

I must admit that I admire many traits that I observe among non-believers. One was telling me about his success:

·       I just push on. I have failed many times, but I just get back up and continue. I regard every failure as an opportunity and a learning experience.

What a great attitude! I compared this with own failure-avoidance patterns. Failure was so painful that I would avoid any possibility of it at all costs. Failure told me that I wasn’t the person I wanted to be. Instead, it attacked my self-esteem and left me naked before a threatening world. Consequently, failing was more than I could endure.

I had won the chess championship of my high school and went on to the state competitions and lost my first game. I was devastated and withdrew.

I still do not relish the prospect of failure. It is painful, but I can now endure it. My identity no longer rests upon my performance or what people might think of me. Instead, it rests squarely upon the thoughts and plans of my Savior who loves me and gave His life for me.

I have admired many other traits found among people who do not share my faith. I have met some who are trying to be scrupulously honest with themselves, something I had been totally incapable of doing.

I wondered, “How are they able to face themselves – their lies, failures, jealousies, and selfishness?” I was never able to face myself. Instead, I always had to be right. Consequently, whenever there was a dispute, I was convinced that it was exclusively the other person’s fault, even as I wrestled to suppress thoughts that proclaimed my guilt.

Instead, it was only through the assurance of Christ’s love, forgiveness, and acceptance that I was enabled to accept myself.

I am not saying that there are many ways to salvation. Instead, the light that provides self-awareness and correction is the very same light that reveals a moral design and the moral law-Designer. According to Jesus, this light comes from God:

·       But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun [light] rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matthew 5:44-45 ESV)

It is this goodness and light of God that should lead us to repentance (Romans 2:4). How does this work? If we truly see ourselves as sinners and then find that, despite our best efforts, we remain condemnable, this should drive us to despair.

Consequently, if we stop short of receiving the full disclosure of the light and its Answer to our moral failures, we condemn ourselves to have to find our own answers. The light tells us we are damned. However, we cannot face this fact any more than we can look into the glare of the sun. So what do we do? We make excuses for ourselves:

1.    I’m doing a lot of good for others, or

2.    Comparatively speaking, I’m a good person, or

3.    God knows that I am trying the best that I can, or

4.    Everybody has their faults – no one can be perfect.

Instead, what does the light tell us? The light tells us that there is still something terribly wrong with us. Our ongoing sense of guilt and shame attest to this fact. Self-forgiveness and rationalizations do not work, at least, not for long. We need the mercy that can only come from Above. The light should make us sorrowful and lead us to repentance and salvation (2 Corinthians 7:10), if we are truly willing to see what it exposes. As Jesus taught, it should make us mourn and not minimize our sins (Matthew 5:3-6).

Therefore, Jesus pronounced this judgment on humanity:

·       "And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” (John 3:19-21)

I am amazed that these wonderful people have been able to endure far more light than I was ever able to endure. However, if they continue to shield themselves from the intense scrutiny of the light-Giver’s light, their defenses and rationalizations will become their self-judgment and destruction.